WPP boss discusses Snapchat’s future role

WPP are the world’s largest communications, marketing and advertising company in the world, with agencies and businesses all over the world, so when their boss speaks, people listen. Now, Sir Martin Sorrell has been discussing the future of social media phenomenon, Snapchat.

Advertisers are always trying to get their brands in front of their customers and potential future customers, through whatever medium is most effective. So, in today’s society, a lot of brands are harnessing social media in a number of different ways to connect with their online audiences.

One social media platform that is becoming more popular, influential and key to marketing plans of all kind is Snapchat, the picture-messaging app.

Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP, has spoken about Snapchat’s current and future role in his company’s operations. In conversation with CNBC at the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas, he said that WPP spent $90 million on Snapchat last year, as part of client campaigns, which was $60 million more than they predicted at the start of the year.

Sorrell even went as far as saying that Snapchat could go as far as becoming a threat to Facebook in the mobile advertising division. He said: “It does become a threatening alternative to Facebook and I think that's the big opportunity for them. We know Facebook have tried to buy Snapchat a couple of times, we know that they've made product changes as a result of Snapchat's products. I think Facebook is concerned about the potential opposition.”

Summarising the interview, Arjun Kharpal has reported in CNBC online that: ‘Based on this figure, Sorrell said forecasts about Snapchat's revenue last year are likely to be higher than what the market currently expects. Several media reports note Snapchat's revenue in 2016 was forecast to be $350 million, but Sorrell notes that if WPP clients spent $90 million out of that, it was likely that the social media company's figure would be higher.’

This could just be the WPP boss being mischievous, because he knows that anything he says on the social media or advertising industry will be widely reported. However, it is interesting to note a potential distant challenger of the ‘big two’ social media companies.

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